Traveling Fool

  Ah, spring! The forecast looked promising, not too hot, not too cold, no snow or rain. The perfect day to take a drive south of the border to Iowa. It's about a three hour drive from the southern metro to Effigy Mounds National Monument in Harpers Ferry, Iowa. I went with my pal, TB2, my usual accomplice on these road trips (our last trip was an excursion to South Dakota in October). Normally we try to find those little roadside treasures, like oversized sculptured animals or balls of twine. There wasn't a lot on the way down, so having left around 8:15, we arrived about 11:30 or so at the park. The park is free to enter, and under normal conditions has a visitor center/museum. There are two parts to the park, but we focused on the northern section. The hike begins with a 350 foot ascent, which felt like 1,000 feet, but we have been less active than we would like, and that's our story. The views of the Mississippi River are really stunning. You can almost imagine the Hop...

Almost two and a half years ago, I took a little day trip down to Van Meter and Winterset, Iowa. I wrote a little about it in my movie blog (the good old days when I only had one blog). It was the heart of summer, hot as hell and me without a/c in the trusty Backer Tracker. I made a return visit with my very good friend, TB2 (not her real name, in case you were wondering). The impetus for this trip was to get a Turkey O'Toole from Bennigan's. Yes, we drove to Iowa for a sandwich. Since that sounds a little weird to say, we thought we should make a whole day of it and go see the new John Wayne Museum (under construction during my last visit) and the Bridges of Madison County, oh and the fall colors. That justified the 3 hour plus journey down, and then of course, we'd have to eat. We headed off to Winterset and after running into a few curtains of distinct and forceful agrarian smells, we made it. You see the small white house where a 13 pound baby boy later known as John W...